Received6 July 2012, Accepted 30 August 2012, Published 28 September 2012

M Gail Hill, Karen McCarty, Deborah Bowers

School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to provide recommendations regarding personal planning for short-term trips to low-resource areas with the purpose of providing health care. Recommendations are based on lessons learned by the three authors during almost 5 years of cumulative time spent in 15 different countries on three continents in international nursing experiences. Recommendations are organized according to essential needs and nice-to-have materials. Suggestions are further sorted by categories of medicines, clothing, entertainment, documentation, safety, personal hygiene, and miscellaneous. Consideration has been given to space and weight limitations, as well as to practical and potentially critical needs. Each recommendation comes from the lived experiences of one, two, or all three authors, and has been found to be worth sharing with those who would experience health care delivery under nonoptimal conditions.

This work is published by Dove Medical Press Limited, and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.
The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.
Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed.
Permissions beyond the scope of the License are administered by Dove Medical Press Limited.
Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.dovepress.com/permissions.php